Abit's BH7 motherboard

AMONG ENTHUSIASTS, Abit's BH6 is probably the most revered motherboard of all time. The BH6 was an overclocker's dream in its day, and even today, many original BH6s are purring happily along, a testament to board's robust BX chipset and unwavering stability.

One could say the BH6 set the standard for enthusiast-oriented motherboards back in the day. Since then, many of its features have been copied and become the norm, improving the motherboard market as a whole, but making it more difficult for individual manufacturers to differentiate themselves.

Considering the BH6's legacy, I was a little surprised to see Abit bring back the legendary "BH" name for the BH7, their latest overclocking and enthusiast-oriented motherboard. With a name that invokes such poignant memories, the BH7 has some big shoes to fill. Fortunately, Abit has a few tricks up its sleeve.

Instead of throwing all sorts of integrated peripherals on the board, Abit has taken a more minimalist approach with the BH7 and focused on component quality and overclocking features. The board is based on Intel's 845PE chipset, but Abit claims the BH7 will work with the latest processors designed for Intel's new 800MHz front-side bus. With its minimalist design, Abit has certainly produced a unique motherboard in the BH7, but does it live up to BH6's legacy? Read on to find out.

The specs Before posing the board for some pictures, let's take a quick look at the spec sheet.

Lately, motherboards that integrate every peripheral device known to man have been all the rage. The BH7 isn't one of those boards. The board has no integrated RAID controller, only one Serial ATA channel, and no support for Firewire devices. One could, of course, add RAID, Firewire, and more robust Serial ATA support with add-in PCI cards. Hardcore enthusiasts tend to be picky about such things, anyway. We generally eschew cheaper integrated components, especially when it comes to features like audio and RAID.